But Descriptive Notation is now, Baby!

This might go under Outrageous thread, or one of the Education, School threads, but considering content I'll post it here.

Creationist exams comparable to International A levels.
Using a mythical creature to disprove evolution. Now there's a novel approach. Does the next chapter use Santa Claus to invalidate relativity or 2nd law of thermodyamics?

btw, even if Nessie did exist and was a plesiosaur it still doesn't invalidate evolution. Wish they'd stop with the "no transitional fossils" nonsense too. Telling the same lie over and over again does not make a lie become the truth.

They've locked themselves into a painted corner (heh). They have just admitted that no amount of evidence (transitional fossils) will make them change their mind. That is just about a textbook example of being close-minded (or psychotic).

Edit: textbook apparently written in the U.S.

Kenny boy, you really DO have "a thorn in your side" concerning the Creationists, don't you?!

You drone on...., and on...., and on....., and on about them.

In my opinion, Ken, there is an underlying *spiritual issue* with you concerning all of this; (in that, you KNOW what you *should do*; but, you still have **NOT done it**, concerning that particular spiritual issue!)!


Chess Fan

Ken, you know how that went with Jupiter losing heat with the evolutionists. Regular scientists had figured Jupiter losing heat roughly twice as much as it takes from Sun. Creationists questioned Evolution scientists with that with how would that be possible if Jupiter was made 4.6 billion years ago to have any heat. Evolutionists simply went and added enough amount of buffer heat to Jupiter to have losted for the billion years. Nice! I think you need to make an attempt to address as many questions as possible in the Age of Earth - Get Educated article.

PA, your creationist friends have goofed again, this time with a question-begging assumption: they assume that all the heat emanating from Jupiter is somehow not generated by Jupiter itself. Jupiter, being a gas giant, is really a minature sun that never reached critical mass, and thus the fusion reaction never took place. That does not mean that the supermassive gravity of Jupiter is not crushing the gas and generating heat another way. In order for your creationist friends to have a point they must show that heat is not being generated by Jupiter.

Q.E.D.

No corner on this one...they have simply declare that no fossil is now or ever will be considered by them as a transitional fossil. No matter how many transitional fossils are found, they'll simply deny reality.

This is much more a case of them sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "I can't hear you."

Pirc, Ed answered this already (Jupiter's contraction due to its massive gravity generates heat--thermal contraction). Plus one of the links I gave you a while back had some information on this. As Ed said, it is up to creationists to show that Jupiter does not generate its own heat (it gives off about twice as much heat as it receives) or that thermal contraction is not the mechanism responsible (also see three ways planets give off heat).

And I suppose when they discovered that radioactivity generated heat in the earth's core that was "adding buffer heat"? And I suppose Europa's heat generating mechanism is just adding "buffer heat"?

You also might want to check the history of this one too...i.e. did creationists question 'evolutionists'(!?) so then 'evolutionists(!?)' added heat...or was it theorized way before Darwin that larger planets (and sun) should be experiencing thermal contraction and that when technology became available we would be able to measure the extra heat it was producing? Mathematics and physics predicted extra heat due to gravitational collapse, and technology later confirmed it.

By the way, from your comment it sounds like you've been watching that inaccurate youtube creation video on the solar system. The speaker constantly uses the word "evolution" and "evolutionists" and applies them to everything. It is laughable. Evolution scientists look at life, genetics, fossils, taxonomy here on earth.

Planetary sciences, cosmology, physics, astronomy are different fields altogether. Evolutionists didn't come up with any answers to Jupiter's extra heat any more than an astrophysicist comes up with answers to the photosynthetic pathways in plants.

You need to read the actual science, Pirc, not what an special interest group tells you the science says, especially when that special interest group admits no amount of evidence will convince them they're wrong, and when that special interest group can't even get even the simple basics right.

I was listening to Astronomy cast (podcasts), and one person said "Jupiter is a failed star". The other person said, "That sounds so negative...why don't we call Jupiter an ambitious planet?".

This is a great lecture on evolution by Dr. Kenneth Miller. Scroll down and click on 2006 Informal Lecture Fossils, Genes and Mousetraps. It is 88 minutes long but I was hooked after the first 10 minutes. It is high definition so if you're on dial-up (Ed) you're not going to have much success. This lecture is delivered to high school students so the material is accessible to those who don't have a strong background in biology.

IMO, before a person pushes creationism they should first view this entire video. It won't change their mind but it may make them reconsider a few of their arguments.

Dr. Miller is coauthor of a high school biology textbook, he testified in the 2005 Dover, PA trial where the school board tried to get ID into the schools, and he's appeared on the Colbert Report and the Jon Daily show. He's also a theist (Catholic), and while he destroys many of the creationist arguments he points out this is not an attack on religion or God.

He demonstrates there are intermediate fossils, and if you want to refute the claim that evolution isn't science because it can't make predictions then you'll have a handful of excellent examples of predictions and subsequent confirmations. Plus he compares predictions made by ID and predictions made by evolutionary theory then shows that what was actually found confirms evolutionary theory and contradicts ID. And he has a very succinct rebuttal of the claim "evolution is just a theory" by comparing it to the course Atomic Theory.

As well, he refutes Behe's (and others) claims about irreducible complexity using biological examples, and by using Behe's actual analogy of the mouse trap and being very creative to show the mousetrap, far from being an example of irreducible complexity, is a better example for evolution. Made me laugh.

A nice feature of this video is that the sidebar has the topics listed and you can click on one of those topics and it jumps to that particular part of the video so you can review select sections. An enjoyable video and next time I watch it I'll take notes

Will this be on the final? (Just thought I'd get you used to it)